Just because college football has finally decided to establish a four-team playoff to determine a national champion doesn’t mean the bowls are going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, the 2014-15 bowl season will be the largest to date, with 39 postseason games lined up. It will all get started at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans on December 20th and finish 23 days later at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX when the two semifinal winners tussle for the title.
Now that were fully into the home stretch of the season, two of our writers here at Last Word On Sports, John Bava and Yesh Ginsburg, will be giving you their bowl projections for all 39 games each Tuesday until they are made official on Sunday, December 7th. For the two semifinal match ups, we will essentially be predicting who we think the committee will go with in terms of the top four teams that week. After that, it all comes down to how we think the bowls will select teams.
This season, the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl will be the hosts of the national semifinal games with the four other major bowls (Peach, Orange, Fiesta and Cotton) essentially functioning as the BCS bowls of old this year. Under the new format these games are referred to as the New Year’s Six, all of which will share hosting rights for the semifinals in future years. For example, next year we will see the Orange and Cotton Bowls as venues for the opening round of the Playoff.
The “Power Five” conferences will certainly benefit greatly from this new structure, but college football’s power brokers had to throw the “Group of Five” smaller conferences a bone. It comes in the form of a guaranteed appearance in one of the non-Playoff New Year’s Six bowl games to the highest ranked team from those leagues in the selection committee’s rankings.
For the rest of the bowls, it should be understood that they don’t necessarily pick teams based on where they finished in their respective conferences. The Outback Bowl traditionally has the third selection out of the Big Ten but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to go with the third place team in that league. Usually, it comes down to how well a team “travels.”
Anyways, enough with the lengthy explanations. Let’s get to what you really want to see: where we have your team going for the holidays. Don’t jump the gun on the travel plans, though, as projection is the key word here. It’s not set in stone yet. We’ll start with the two big ones, move on down to the other New Year’s Six games, then project the rest of them in chronological order. For the sake of simplicity, John’s pick for each bowl will be listed first, followed by Yesh’s selection.
All games are on ESPN unless listed otherwise, and all times are ET.
LWOS Bowl Projections after Week 11
NATIONAL SEMIFINALS
Rose Bowl – Pasadena, CA: January 1, 2015, 5 pm
(2) Florida State vs. (3) Oregon
(2) Florida State vs. (3) TCU
Sugar Bowl – New Orleans, LA: January 1, 2015, 8:30 pm
(1) Mississippi State vs. (4) TCU
(1) Mississippi State vs. (4) Oregon
College Football Championship Game – Arlington, TX: January 12, 2015, 8:30 pm
Rose Bowl Winner vs. Sugar Bowl Winner
OTHER NEW YEAR’S SIX BOWLS
Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl – Atlanta, GA: December 31, 2014, 1 pm
Alabama vs. Ohio State
Auburn vs. Boise State
Vizio Fiesta Bowl – Glendale, AZ: December 31, 2014, 5 pm
Colorado State vs. Arizona State
Arizona State vs. Ole Miss
Capital One Orange Bowl – Miami Gardens, FL: December 31, 2014, 8:30 pm
Auburn vs. Clemson
Alabama vs. Clemson
Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic – Arlington, TX: January 1, 2014, 1 pm
Baylor vs. Notre Dame
Baylor vs. Ohio State
THE REST OF THE BOWLS
December 20, 2014
R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl – New Orleans, LA – 11 am
Arkansas State vs. UAB
Louisiana-Lafayette vs. Temple
Gildan New Mexico Bowl – Albuquerque, NM – 2:20 pm
San Diego State vs. UTEP
Nevada vs. UTEP
Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl – Las Vegas, NV – 3:30 pm, ABC
Boise State vs. Stanford
Colorado State vs. Washington
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl – Boise, ID – 5:45 pm
Nevada vs. Northern Illinois
Central Michigan vs. San Diego State
Raycom Media Camellia Bowl – Montgomery, AL – 9:15 pm
Central Michigan vs. Texas State
Western Michigan vs. South Alabama
December 22, 2014
Miami Beach Bowl – Miami, FL – 2 pm
Memphis vs. BYU
Houston vs. BYU
December 23, 2014
Boca Raton Bowl – Boca Raton, FL – 6 pm
Middle Tennessee State vs. Western Michigan
UAB vs. Northern Illinois
San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl – San Diego, CA – 9:30 pm
Navy vs. Utah State
Navy vs. Utah State
December 24, 2014
Popeyes Bahamas Bowl – Nassau, Bahamas – noon
Temple vs. Bowling Green
Louisiana Tech vs. Bowling Green
Hawai’i Bowl – Honolulu, HI – 8 pm
Air Force vs. Marshall
Air Force vs. Marshall
December 26, 2014
Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl – Dallas, TX – 1 pm
Iowa vs. Rice
Penn State vs. Rice
Quick Lane Bowl – Detroit, MI – 4:30 pm
NC State vs. Michigan
Virginia Tech vs. Michigan
Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl – St. Petersburg, FL – 8 pm
Central Florida vs. Maryland
Central Florida vs. Pittsburgh
December 27, 2014
Military Bowl presented by Northrop Grumman – Annapolis, MD – 1 pm
Cincinnati vs. Boston College
Memphis vs. Boston College
Hyundai Sun Bowl – El Paso, TX – 2 pm, CBS
Georgia Tech vs. Utah
Miami (FL) vs. Arizona
Duck Commander Independence Bowl – Shreveport, LA – 4 pm, ESPN2
Virginia Tech vs. Louisiana Tech
N.C. State vs. Middle Tennessee State
New Era Pinstripe Bowl – The Bronx, NY – 4:30 pm
Pittsburgh vs. Penn State
Notre Dame vs. Minnesota
National University Holiday Bowl – San Diego, CA – 8 pm
Wisconsin vs. Arizona
Wisconsin vs. USC
December 29, 2014
Autozone Liberty Bowl – Memphis, TN – 2 pm
Texas vs. Missouri
West Virginia vs. Florida
Russell Athletic Bowl – Orlando, FL – 5:30 pm
Duke vs. Oklahoma
Duke vs. Oklahoma
AdvoCare Texas Bowl – Houston, TX – 9 pm
Tennessee vs. Rutgers
Texas vs. Kentucky
December 30, 2014
Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl – Nashville, TN – 3 pm
Miami vs. Georgia
Louisville vs. Missouri
Belk Bowl – Charlotte, NC – 6:45 pm
Louisville vs. Florida
Georgia Tech vs. Rutgers
San Francisco Bowl – Santa Clara, CA – 10 pm
Minnesota vs. Southern Cal
Maryland vs. Utah
January 1, 2015
Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl – Orlando, FL – 1 pm, ABC
Clemson vs. LSU
Nebraska vs. Georgia
Outback Bowl – Tampa, FL – 1 pm, ESPN2
Nebraska vs. Ole Miss
Michigan State vs. LSU
January 2, 2015
Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl – Fort Worth, TX – noon
Houston vs. California
Cincinnati vs. Texas State
TaxSlayer Bowl – Jacksonville, FL – 3:20 pm
Michigan State vs. Texas A&M
Iowa vs. Texas A&M
Valero Alamo Bowl – San Antonio, TX – 6:45 pm
Kansas State vs. UCLA
Kansas State vs. UCLA
Cactus Bowl – Tempe, AZ – 10:15 pm
West Virginia vs. Washington
Oklahoma State vs. Stanford
January 3, 2015
Birmingham Bowl – Birmingham, AL – 1 pm, ESPN2
East Carolina vs. Kentucky
East Carolina vs. Temple
January 4, 2015
GoDaddy Bowl – Mobile, AL – 9 pm
Toledo vs. Louisiana-Lafayette
Toledo vs. Arkansas State
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